Embryos in storage

[APomInOz]

I realise this might not be the right place to post, but also wary of upsetting other parents or people struggling with fertility.
My situation is: 5/6 years ago I had cancer and had to go through chemo, the doctors advised going through part of the IVF process to store my eggs incase the chemo killed all opportunity of having more kids. Info: I had one child who was 8 months old and I was 36 years old. When we went through the process, they took my husbands sperm and found he had a low sperm count and so decided to make embryos for a better chance. I had to get onto the chemo pretty quickly and this was all pretty rushed and I didn't think things through properly, didn't know the right questions to ask and I suppose we just went with what the doctors suggested.

It turned out that I had 15 embryos, which is a lot.
So problem 1: I have been informed that we now need to consider whether we let them "succumb" or keep storing (there is no option for scientific research). Husband and I have now separated so there is definitely no chance to have another baby (we did actually have another one a year after chemo, naturally). I am very upset to let them go, but can't see the point of keeping them. Ex wants to keep them and his reason is - problem 2: If either of our kids (or his two from previous marriage) have problems having kids, there are embryos to help them. I think this is awful and so wrong and I do not want to do this. Please tell me what you think and with reasons, AIBU??

Maid that's amazing, what a great thing it is that you do!

The HFEA would never allow them to be used by your or his children. He sounds seriously weird.

I think you need to cut all ties to your ex husband and either destroy them or donate them 100% anonymously to an infertile couple.

Thank you Emmyrose.

In your situation I would choose to donate and I'd try to persuade my ex to allow this to take place.

I know it wouldn't be easy, but I'd tell myself that I was making a brave and selfless decision. To give these embryos the opportunity for life.

I know that one of the reasons I've been able to have medical treatment is because other people made the selfless decision to donate their bodies to medical research so that medical and dental students can learn anatomy.

And other families make the decision to allow the organs of their deceased loved one to be donated for transplantation.

So I'd tell myself this was something I could do for other people with infertility to pay that forward. That this was chance to bring joy out of sadness and life out of death.

Because if parents can bring themselves to allow their child's organs to be donated to another child, I could to allow these cells in a test tube to be defrosted and implanted in someone else.

I'd also tell myself that although these would be no longer be my children, they would belong to the woman or couple who give birth to them and raise them. Open embryo adoption might help with this.

I'd choose NOT to go around thinking " they are my missing children, where are they ? " , because that way madness lies.

That's what I'd do.

Banana, you are a beautiful person, I wish you all the hope, love and happiness in the world. Best wishes to you. Thank you.

I just wanted to also post to say I personally couldn't donate either my eggs or my embryos to another couple, they're my genetic material and I'd wonder every day what became of them and if they were OK, I'd never stop feeling like they were "my" children.

That may be irrational to many people. I'm so glad other people don't feel this way and do donate their eggs/sperm/embryos but I also can't help the way I feel about it.

I have no answers fir you OP, but I can understand how difficult it is.

Another reason not to do what your exh suggests is by the time your dc are having kids fertility treatment is likely to have moved on so much that your embryos would be unlikely to help as they'll do it in a different way.

Hi APom, I have been in your shoes (with regards to frozen embryos, not the cancer/relationship break up) and had the agonising decision to make regarding 9 x 6-day-old frozen embryos. After going through full IVF twice and many unsuccessful attempts at using 'frosties', once we'd had 2 beautiful children and knew we'd completed our family, when the letter/bill arrived, we had to make a decision...
In the end we were allowed to donate them to the clinic for their own research, but I think you said that's not possible where you are? There are many rules/regulations re donating of which age at the time the eggs were taken is one (I think you need to be under 30 or 35). As they are embryos and not eggs, donating to another couple was also not possible as they would technically be 'adopting' the embryo/future child and that strictly wasn't allowed, so I think posters telling you that you are selfish by not doing so need to get their facts straight! Especially your ex husband, as what he is suggesting would most definitely not be allowed!

Even if donating to other couples had been an option, we also said we would struggle with that option and the thought that we could have biological children walking the earth somewhere. Eggs or sperm alone is entirely different to an embryo.

I know it's very difficult but if you really can't donate to research then the idea of planting a tree and putting them in the soil is a lovely one.

Kr1st1na - I'm sorry you have gone through some medical issues. I hope you are well now.

Clueless and Curly, thank you so much. Bless you both so much, you are beautiful people, big hugs.

I'm sorry I mentioned donating so early - we can't have children, and the next person to say "just adopt" is going to have to deal with me having a meltdown. How I didn't see this was the same for you, OP, I don't know.

I would agree that extending for 5 years is appropriate to give you thinking time. I also "like" the idea of planting a tree if you decide not to do anything else.

Vivienne, this is a sore subject for so many. I'm sorry for your situation, thank you for understanding mine, big hugs.

I haven’t read all the posts so maybe this has been answered already or am I completely missing something? Your eldest child was born when you were 35/36 and now you are 43. You have 5 yrs left with these embryos and your husband thinks that your children can use them if they have problems conceiving? Are his other children that much older that they might be in need of embryos within 5 years? If not then keeping them for the children isn’t a valid point. Sorry if I’m completely missing the point.

Thank you Pom, it was very minor compared to what you have been through.

My son is a medical student and spends 8 hours a week doing anatomy and working on disections. There's no comparison with learning from books and he's just so grateful to have the chance to learn like this. And all because of someone else's decision to donate their own body after death.

That's four future doctors who will be trained better through that gift.

So you'll see why I would like to give something back for the medical care I've received and the training and opportunities DS has been given .

Hope that makes sense.

It's an intensely personal decision, isn't it ? So that's why I've talked about what I would and not what anyone else should do.

I hope you find the wisdom to do what's right in your own situation and that afterwards you find peace.

IWould - You got it right. The kids we have together are 4 and 7 years, his other kids are 19 yrs (boy living in UK, we are Oz) and 13yrs, so really not legit!
He's just weird!

Thank you Kr1st1na

Can't believe you've been given so much flack OP. It's extremely personal choice, and whilst I've never been in the same position I would struggle too.

I do think it's worth remembering that not all frozen embryos will make it to successful pregnancy. I don't know if that helps, but if you did donate then it would be unlikely to result in 15 babies.

When we were doing IVF, DH and I didn't want donor eggs/sperm/embryos. For us, we wanted our children or to learn to live without them. So, even if there are donor eggs, it doesn't mean there's an automatic match for them. It is also worth noting the success rates for embryos. There is actually a fairly low chance of any of the embryos becoming a child. Knowing this may help you to make a decision.

OP - I noted that your ex's bizarre suggestion was that YOU ask the clinic about the impossible idea of storing the embryos for his children. Not only is his suggestion so weird and utterly impractical that it makes no sense at all, but he wasn't planning to ask the clinic himself. Can I suggest that you ask the clinic to communicate directly with each of you separately, and you never discuss this with him? Does the clinic know that you've separated? There will be a strong set of rules about whether both parents need to agree to storage/not that the clinic needs to abide by. They will probably need both signatures for any decision. Just make your own decision, and leave him to make his. The clinic should know the legal side, and will then abide by that. It may be that the decision gets taken out of your hands effectively. Maybe just think about your feelings if you were told what would happen rather than making a decision.

Thinking of you.

I would hope not, experiments on embryos is something that should never ever happen

It most definitely should happen, if it could help someone who is suffering.

OP I'm another one with embryos currently in storage (9 that have been genetically screened so have a high chance of becoming humans). We haven't completed our family yet but will (obviously) not be having 9 more babies - !! - so will eventually have to make the same decision. There is no way I would donate them to other couples - mostly because I don't think it would be fair on my existing child(ren). We will be donating them for research when the time comes. Anyone telling us we are "selfish" and that it's "unfair to deny the embryos life" or other such nonsense will be pegged as the arseholes they undoubtedly are and given short shrift.

Your husband is a loon but it sounds like you've gone through a stressful separation so would echo PPs that the best thing to do would be to keep them on ice for a little longer until the dust settles. Good luck with it all ❤️

We are in Oz, and before deciding we were offered counselling by our fertility clinic. They did raise some issues we had not thought of, particularly in regard to donation... things like, what if that child has a terrible life, rocks up as a teen/adult and sees their full sibling has had a cushy existance, how would we feel? What would we tell our children about these siblings, raised in separate families? Would we be constantly looking for similar children, wondering where they were/what they looked like etc?

But at the end, having thought through the above, we decided to donate. I won't lie that a part of me was relieved when some didn't thaw and the others didn't take, I guess for me I felt I had done what I felt was right, but wasn't left with any long term consequences.

I think it is too soon with separation etc to make the decision on the embryos, but maybe contact the clinic for some counselling - possibly with your ex (so the counsellor can tell him these embryos will never be donated to a sibling or a future partner of his, just in case that is a part of his decision as well).

Best of luck, it isn't easy.

And I think they are able to find biological parent details, so the knock at the door when they are older is a real consideration.

I personally would not be able to donate an embryo. Possibly an egg (if i was young enough, which i'm not now) or possibly sperm (if i was a man) but not a fully fertilized embryo. Hard to say why. Don't feel the need to try.

Doesn't matter what we all would do here anyway really- it's OPs choice.

I must say; how naive and unpleasant to try to guilt trip a person to decide one way or another about something like this - it's a life affecting decision.

Good luck with it all OP

Thanks for starting this thread, I am currently in a similar position. Dh had cancer and we had ivf. We had two fresh cycles and have 20 embryos. We have 4 year old twins and just dont think we can cope with more ivf even though we would have liked more children.

I am finding the decision process so complicated. I like the idea of donating to couple but think it might take up too much space mentally always thinking about those other children. I know logically they would not be mine but i cannot help how i feel.

Research donation is possible and MaidofStars made me see how sensible it is. My husband survived due to stem cell transplants so for our embryos to be used in stem cell research seems fitting.

I think that for us it is hard to make the final decision as it means thw definate end of children for us and that is hard to accept. In fact making me cry writing it. And all of it is so caught up with how ill DH was and the grief that we couldnt concieve naturally, or that i had two miscarriages.

Those who criticise those who dont want to donate can quite frankly piss off. How unkind and unthoughtful. Just because something might appear the best thing to do on one level it is in reality so much more complicated than that. I think i would forever be thinking if an embyo became a girl the girl i though i would have and never will. Healthy women can donate their eggs and are not being morally compelled to do so.

I wish you the best in your decision op.

You are not remotely selfish for not wanting to donate. I would not be able to donate embryos either...eggs possibly...but not embryos. I wouldn’t be able to forget or move on from the fact that my children’s 100% genetic match siblings were somewhere else in the world but nothing to do with our family. Plus, as nice as it would be to donate to another couple, it really isn’t anymore your responsibility to solve another couple’s infertility issues than it is for any other person, infertile or not.

I think the best thing to do for the time being is to thoroughly research the different options, whilst your ex speaks to the fertility hospital about his crazy idea to give the embryos to his children. There is no rush to make this decision so take your time.

I get that you don't want to donate them. It's just not about making other parents dreams come true. Much more complicated then that. If I was you I would opt for another 5 years and decide then.